Odd question but does anyone have any recommendations for someone to learn as an adult? Moved here from England & have picked up bits and pieces but can’t find any classes or clubs!
(Duo Lingo is weirdly obsessed with parsnips and leeks >_>)
>Over 18,000 individuals are learning Welsh
And
>More people than ever
It’s great news and more please but that can’t be right.
I’m skeptical of some of these numbers.
More Welsh learners is good as it might increase the number of active speakers longterm, but I’m reminded of how I as a fluent speaker was forced to take basic second language “Fy enw i yw…” classes in college, presumably to bump the number of learners up on someones spreadsheets.
I often feel like we’re constantly being told classes are getting more learners, but then the census for the last two decades has shown a decline in speakers. So either the learners aren’t turning into speakers or we’re losing speakers at too fast a rate through moving or death, or perhaps both.
The gains here are almost entirely from entry and foundation level.
* Entry Level Students have gone from 7,000 to 11,000. A fantastic gain… But this is probably your basic “Bore da” class.
* Foundation Level Students have gone from 2,400 to 2,600
* Intermediate Students have gone from 1,900 to 1,800. A decrease of 100 learners.
* Advanced Students have gone from 1610… To 1660. A recovery after 4 years in the 1500s.
The intensity data tells a similar story, with the number of those undergoing intense Welsh Courses going down.
Hopefully I’m wrong here and the uptick in Entry Level students will translate over time to more advanced learners and then afterwards into speakers. But the Entry Level student numbers in this study have increased year on year but intermediate and advanced students don’t seem to gain in proportion, even going down quite dramatically on some years.
Just in case anyone is also interested in joining them; r/learnwelsh
There are a lot of learners who just use Duo and/or SSIW and who don’t use learnwelsh.cym. Any shortfall in numbers on the higher levels of learnwelsh.cym are more than compensated by the numbers using the first two of these three options. In short, the number of learners/new speakers outside the Bro Gymraeg has risen consistently.
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Da iawn !
Odd question but does anyone have any recommendations for someone to learn as an adult? Moved here from England & have picked up bits and pieces but can’t find any classes or clubs!
(Duo Lingo is weirdly obsessed with parsnips and leeks >_>)
>Over 18,000 individuals are learning Welsh
And
>More people than ever
It’s great news and more please but that can’t be right.
I’m skeptical of some of these numbers.
More Welsh learners is good as it might increase the number of active speakers longterm, but I’m reminded of how I as a fluent speaker was forced to take basic second language “Fy enw i yw…” classes in college, presumably to bump the number of learners up on someones spreadsheets.
I often feel like we’re constantly being told classes are getting more learners, but then the census for the last two decades has shown a decline in speakers. So either the learners aren’t turning into speakers or we’re losing speakers at too fast a rate through moving or death, or perhaps both.
[Here is the link to the actual data](https://learnwelsh.cymru/about-us/statistics/2023-2024-statistics/)
The gains here are almost entirely from entry and foundation level.
* Entry Level Students have gone from 7,000 to 11,000. A fantastic gain… But this is probably your basic “Bore da” class.
* Foundation Level Students have gone from 2,400 to 2,600
* Intermediate Students have gone from 1,900 to 1,800. A decrease of 100 learners.
* Advanced Students have gone from 1610… To 1660. A recovery after 4 years in the 1500s.
The intensity data tells a similar story, with the number of those undergoing intense Welsh Courses going down.
Hopefully I’m wrong here and the uptick in Entry Level students will translate over time to more advanced learners and then afterwards into speakers. But the Entry Level student numbers in this study have increased year on year but intermediate and advanced students don’t seem to gain in proportion, even going down quite dramatically on some years.
Just in case anyone is also interested in joining them; r/learnwelsh
There are a lot of learners who just use Duo and/or SSIW and who don’t use learnwelsh.cym. Any shortfall in numbers on the higher levels of learnwelsh.cym are more than compensated by the numbers using the first two of these three options. In short, the number of learners/new speakers outside the Bro Gymraeg has risen consistently.
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